


no one has to know

by i_kinda_like_writing



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Historical Inaccuracy, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, Lack of Communication, M/M, OR IS IT??, Oblivious, Oblivious Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, Writer Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Writing Agent William "Dex" Poindexter, a twofer, after much, but like.. the 60s, but the fun kind!, not really but sort of, post-college, so both a future fic AND a past fic, so sure?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_kinda_like_writing/pseuds/i_kinda_like_writing
Summary: Ford met him at the elevator when he arrived at the office.“Good morning, sir,” she said, and took his coat.Dex grunted.She folded his coat over her arm and followed close behind him as he marched towards his office. “I’m sorry I called you on your day off.”Dex grunted again and paused as he reached his office door. “If anything warranted it,” he said, hand perched on the doorknob, “it was this.”or; a 60s au in which Nursey gets drunk and sad and fucks his career over, Dex (as his writing agent) has to spend his one day off trying to fix it, and everyone and their mother seems to think they know more about his and Nursey's relationship than Dex. (they're only sort of right)
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 50
Kudos: 308





	no one has to know

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I watched the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Shy's whole thing just Got To Me and somehow I ended up writing a 14K 60s AU with very little research aside from that show.
> 
> GIANT thanks to [rhysiana](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/) and [honhonbaguettegofuckyourself](https://honhonbaguettegofuckyourself.tumblr.com/) for their help with betaing this fic! All remaining errors are my own!
> 
> If you didn't see the tags, **warnings** for this fic include homophobia typical of the time period and somewhat self-destructive behavior.
> 
> Title is from the song that really inspired this fic, No One Has to Know from the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel soundtrack.
> 
> With that, I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

Ford met him at the elevator when he arrived at the office.

“Good morning, sir,” she said, and took his coat.

Dex grunted.

She folded his coat over her arm and followed close behind him as he marched towards his office. “I’m sorry I called you on your day off.”

Dex grunted again and paused as he reached his office door. “If anything warranted it,” he said, hand perched on the doorknob, “it was this.”

Once inside his office, he immediately began to shuffle papers around on his desk, searching for a phone number he never could remember, despite the frequency with which he used it. The call would be the first in a long line of them, he was sure, and he so detested speaking on the phone. He nearly gave in to the groan that grew in his throat at the thought of the day laid out in front of him before he realized Ford was still standing in his doorway.

“Am I forgetting something?” he asked her, glancing up briefly.

“Oh, no, sir.” She continued to stand there.

Dex ceased his seemingly pointless searching and looked up, expectant.

“I was just wondering, sir.” She frowned. “Are you alright?”

Dex took a deep breath through his nose. Held it for a moment, then exhaled. He dropped his gaze back down to the desk, pushed around a few papers. “That doesn’t really matter,” he said, “at the moment.”

Ford said nothing for several long seconds and Dex’s stomach churned at the thought that she’d say something like, _I’m sorry_ , but when she finally spoke, her words were professional and short. “It’s in your top left drawer.”

Dex’s brow wrinkled momentarily before he reached to open said drawer and there, sitting on top of a pile of similar notecards, was the exact number he needed. He plucked it up, running his thumb along the edge of the index card. He looked up at her. “Thank you, Ford.”

She nodded. “I’ll get Martin on the phone?”

“Give me five minutes,” he said, letting himself collapse back into his desk chair.

Ford nodded silently and left his office. Dex waited until the door shut and then gave himself three long seconds before he began to dial.

It rang two and a half times before, “B.S. Knight, _The New York Times_ , how may I be of service?”

“Shitty, it’s me.”

“Fuck.”

At least he was properly scared.

“Before you start yelling,” Shitty said quickly, the sound of a cigarette being jammed repeatedly against an ashtray audible in the background, “I just want you to know that I had _nothing_ to do with it—”

“Shitty.”

Shitty kept on. “Well, okay, I had a _little_ to do with it, but I cannot be held accountable for helping out a friend in need—”

“Shitty—”

“—and he _was_ in need, really! You can’t blame him either. Or Lardo! Wait, shit, fuck—don’t tell Lardo I mentioned her name, fuck, I don’t wanna sleep in the bathtub again—”

“Shitty, just, _stop_. I’m not mad.”

“—it’s so cold and hard and it’s hell on my neck—what?”

Dex pinched the bridge of his nose. He shouldn’t have started with Shitty. “I’m not mad,” he repeated again, tone level by force. “I just need to know how bad the damage is so I can fix it.”

“Oh.”

Dex flicked away the notecard with Shitty’s number on it. Lardo definitely would’ve been a better first call.

“You’re not mad?” Shitty asked, voice pitched high.

“No.”

Shitty stayed silent for a few seconds and then, tone heavily suspicious, asked, “Why not?”

“Because I’m tired.” He took a deep breath, but it didn’t calm him. He grabbed for a stray pen, just to hold. “I’m tired,” he repeated. “It’s too fucking early on a Saturday morning and I’m too tired to be mad that I have to call everyone on the Upper West Side just because Nursey got drunk and sad again.” He exhaled, hard. “Okay?”

“Hey, Dex, don’t—” Shitty paused. Then, careful, “You didn’t see him. He wasn’t—it wasn’t like usual.”

“Just because he came crying to you this time doesn’t mean it isn’t the same shit he always pulls.” Dex started tapping the pen against his desktop, even though he knew it would be audible over the phone.

The clock on his desk told him that, right now, he should’ve been asleep. He should’ve been asleep in his bed on his one day off, and he shouldn’t have had to wake up for another hour at the least. He should have been able to get breakfast at the place two doors down from his apartment, should’ve been able to listen to Shirley, his regular waitress, tell him all about her grandkids and her arthritis, should’ve been able to leave her the biggest bill in his wallet as a tip, should’ve been able to relax the rest of the day with a book, maybe, go for a walk, get lunch with a friend. Anything but be _here_ , arguing with Shitty as the sun came up because Nursey couldn’t keep it to his fucking _self_ —

“Dex.”

Dex dropped the pen, curling his hand tight around nothing. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry—I’m—” _Waking up_ would’ve been the most honest. “I’m just tired,” he said, eyes closing. “I’m just—really tired.”

Silence, then an audible breath. “Dex, are you—”

Dex neither wanted to hear nor answer that question. He forced his voice back into a professional, pointed tone. “I just need you to send me over the publishing contract so I can know exactly what he signed away.”

A second of hesitation or two later, Shitty said, “I’ll have it messengered over within the hour.”

Dex sighed. “Thank you.”

Over the line came the flick of a lighter as Shitty lit up a replacement cigarette. “That’s all you called for?” he asked, after taking a drag. Dex imagined the smoke on his lips as he exhaled, saying, “You could’ve talked to anyone here to get the contract. You could’ve called Lardo, she’s a much better first call than me.”

Dex’s fingers itched for the pen, laying discarded a few scant inches away. He stared at it. Lardo would’ve been perfect. She would’ve been quick, professional, not apologetic or explanatory. He would’ve been in and out of the call in under two minutes.

He rolled his bottom lip against his teeth. When he released it, he asked, “Is he—okay?”

Shitty inhaled smoke. “You haven’t talked to him?”

Dex curled his fingers tighter, pinpricks in his palm. “He hasn’t answered my calls.”

Exhale. “I don’t know if he’s home.”

“Bitty’s?”

“Maybe.”

“Fuck.” Dex reached for the pen. He spun the barrel in his fingers, revealing and concealing the nib in quick, rhythmic twists. Twice he’d called, before leaving the house. A third time on the payphone by the office. He’d imagined Nursey passed out on the couch, ignorant of the ringing phone, had fumed his way into work imagining Nursey’s pleasant unconsciousness while the rest of the world dealt with his mess. As much anger as he’d tangled up in the image, though, there’d been a safety in it, too.

Softly breaking through Dex’s thoughts, Shitty asked, “Have you read it yet?”

Dex thought of the copy of the _Times_ he’d stepped over on his way out of the apartment not half an hour earlier. “No.”

Shitty inhaled, hummed. “You should read it. Not now or anything, but before you talk to him. You should know where he’s coming from before—you do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

Dex wanted to ask Shitty where the fuck he got off telling Dex what to do not 24 hours after he royally screwed Dex over, but Ford was at the door gesturing for him to come out there, so his five minutes were up. “If you talk to him,” Dex said, sitting forward to put the phone back in the cradle, “let him know I’m looking for him.”

“Oh,” Shitty said, with a chuckle Dex didn’t much appreciate, “I’m sure he knows.”

Dex hung up without a response. He stood from his chair, buttoned his jacket, and smoothed out his suit before following Ford into the hall.

“Does she seem mad?” he asked her as they reached her desk.

Ford didn’t respond, which meant yes.

He took a deep breath and reached for the phone. “Before you get mad—”

“It’s a little late for that,” Georgia Martin said, sharp, on the other end of the line.

Dex winced. “It isn’t as bad as it seems.”

“It seems pretty damn bad right now.”

Dex covered the receiver with his hand to emit a mild curse in the other direction, which made Ford stifle a giggle. “Martin,” he said, uncovering the phone, “I know we have FNASR with you, which would make publishing the story in the _Times_ seem pretty bad—”

“And contract nullifying,” Martin interjected.

“— _but_ ,” Dex continued, trying to pull something out of his ass, because this was Georgia fucking Martin and Dex would be damned if he was going to let one stupid blip ruin their chance at working with the biggest publishing house in the country, “but that story—” he winced as he said it, “—it isn’t the story we’re giving you.”

Ford’s giggle stopped sharply, and she shot him a look. Dex ignored her.

Martin’s voice came flat and unconvinced. “It’s not.”

If Dex had learned one thing about bullshitting in his time as Nursey’s agent, it was that, once you’d started, you couldn’t stop. “No,” he said, gaining steam, “the piece he has for you is still in the works. He’s been struggling with the editing, so he wrote the piece for the _Times_ to work out the writer’s block, a bit of fluff to tide over his need for creative validation, you know, nothing more.”

Martin paused, then clucked her tongue. “So you’re saying that the piece he printed today, the piece that has my whole building abuzz with talk about Nurse being the next big thing, that piece is nothing but fluff?”

Dex stifled another curse. “Well, _may_ be it’s a bit more than fluff, but it’s not the piece he’s working on for you.”

“On top of the story this morning, he has something that’s going to be ready in two weeks?”

Dex shook his head even as he said, “Yes, he does.”

Georgia Martin didn’t say anything for a moment. Every muscle in Dex’s body remained tensed and Ford stared at him unwaveringly from behind her giant glasses. Finally, Martin said, “Well, if that’s true, then we don’t have a problem.”

Dex exhaled. “Good. Great. Thank you, Ms. Martin.”

“But tell your client that I expect a story on my desk in two weeks’ time that’s better than the piece he published today.”

Dex cursed, loudly, in his head. “Of course.”

Martin hummed. She made no sound of parting, no intimation that she would be hanging up, so Dex stood with the phone against his cheek, waiting. Eventually, with no preamble, she said, “That story he wrote this morning?”

Dex didn’t breathe. “Yes?”

“It was brilliant.”

Dex shut his eyes, tight and then more relaxed. “Thank you, Ms. Martin,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”

Martin said, “Hm,” and then hung up the phone.

Dex let the phone fall back into its cradle.

“Sir?”

Dex inhaled, eyes still shut. “Yes, Ford?”

“You told Ms. Martin that the piece Nurse published in the _Times_ isn’t the piece he’s been working on for the past four months?”

“Yes.”

“Because _if_ that piece is the piece he promised them, publishing it in the _Times_ would breach the first publishing rights Falconers has included in our contract with them?”

“That’s right.”

“But it _was_ the piece we promised to Falconers, wasn’t it?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So, you just promised a story to Ms. Martin in two weeks that Nurse hasn’t started yet?”

Dex said nothing in response, instead choosing to rub at the migraine blooming in his temples.

“Oh, boy.”

“Indeed.”

“Who should I call?”

God, Dex loved his assistant.

Dex took a second to think and then said, quick, “Start with Jack. See if he can get Mashkov to find out if my bullshitting with Martin really worked or not. Then call Ransom and have him find out the response to this morning’s piece, as a favor to me.” Dex winced to himself and added, “If he says no, call Holster and get him to convince Ransom. Tell him he owes me for that time in Providence.” He sighed, deep. “And then poke around at Samwell Books, call Murray, maybe, see if there’s a possibility of reupping our contract with them in the next two weeks, but don’t make it obvious, and don’t tell them our house is burning down around us.”

Dex opened his eyes to see Ford scribbling furiously on her notepad. When she finished, she looked up at him through her giant glasses and blinked expectantly.

Dex pressed his fingers into the edge of her desk. “And.” He rolled his bottom lip into his teeth, held it, and released. “In between it all, call up Nursey. If he doesn’t answer after the third call, try Bitty.”

Her big eyes softened behind her glasses and he looked away.

“Thank you,” he said, and escaped to his office.

*~*~*

Dex hadn’t been in his office ten minutes before the phone rang again.

He pressed momentarily on his forehead, hoping to tamp down on the growing migraine there, and grabbed the phone from the cradle. “W.P. Management, William Poindexter speaking.”

“It still sounds ridiculous when you answer the phone like that,” Chowder said, laughing.

Dex slumped back into his chair. “Fuck, am I glad to hear your voice.”

“We talked just yesterday,” Chowder said, amused. “You and Cait had a 30-minute-long argument about that piece in the _L.A. Times_.”

Dex tugged at his tie, loosening it enough to breathe deeply. “It’s been years since yesterday. Hell, it’s been years since I woke up this morning.”

Chowder laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Did you see what he did?”

Chowder hummed. “Lardo sent it over this morning. Well,” he amended, “I say this morning–the sun isn’t even up yet.”

Dex fidgeted with the knot of his tie and huffed. “S’what you get for moving to Cali.”

Chowder sighed. “When will you stop punishing me for that?”

“When you move back.”

Chowder huffed, a short, smiled thing. Dex smiled, too, despite himself. The receiver dug into his cheek as the smile contorted his face. It was cold, and hard.

A few silent moments passed, and Chowder asked, “Can you fix it?”

The pressure on Dex’s cheek disappeared as his smile flattened. “Yes. Maybe.”

Chowder hummed. “That’s good.”

Dex bit his tongue to contain the pointed retort burgeoning there. He let go of his tie in favor of his pen, just holding it.

Chowder tutted. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say what you were going to say.”

“You spent all those years telling me to restrain myself and now—”

“Dex.”

Dex didn’t know if it was a recent development, Chowder’s wisdom or maturity or what have you beyond his years. The accompanying tone of voice was definitely new. Possibly it’d been there since college. Possibly, Dex amended as a memory appeared in his mind of dragging a drunk Chowder back home in the snow as he cry-laughed about how beautiful his girlfriend was, possibly it’d happened sometime after that.

Dex squeezed his hand tight around the pen. “I’m just—it’s good that I can fix it, yes, but it would’ve been preferable to not have anything to fix at all.”

“Your job is to fix things that Nursey breaks,” Chowder said fairly. “You knew that when you started.”

Dex huffed. “I _know_ , but why does he have to always break things so _much_?”

Chowder tutted again. “You know why,” he said. “You know why for this, at least.”

“He’s insane?” Dex quipped.

Chowder smiled—Chowder’s smiles were always audible. “More like the both of you are.”

“Oh yeah,” Dex gestured with the pen, “Nursey goes and blows the best deal he’s ever had and _I’m_ the crazy one.”

“Yeah,” Chowder said, laughing, “that’s about right.”

“And from where are you drawing this conclusion?”

“Oh, as the longest viewer of the Dex and Nursey show, I can say with some authority that the both of you are completely off your rockers. Have been since the start. Only got worse with time.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dex grumbled, but he was laughing a little, too.

Chowder sighed. “So you’re going to talk to him?” he asked, relieved.

Still quipping, Dex said, “I’m going to yell at him, yes, as soon as the asshole takes my call.”

As audible as the arrivals of Chowder’s smiles were, so too were the departures. “Dex.”

Dex frowned. They’d been joking, laughing, he’d thought— Defensive, he said, “What?”

“You’re going to yell at him? After he published what he did?”

“Yes?” Dex’s forehead wrinkled. “Publishing it is kind of the main problem?”

Chowder’s voice rose in volume with each word. “You read what he wrote and you _still_ want to—” He stopped abruptly. “You haven’t read it.”

Dex started tapping his pen.

Chowder huffed. “Dex.”

“What does it matter—”

“You know why it matters.”

Dex wanted to insist that, _no, he didn’t_ , but it was Chowder, and Dex knew better than that. Watching his pen bob, he said, quiet, “It won’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”

“That’s not the _point_.” Chowder had never had such steel in his voice before. Dex shuffled in his chair. “I’ve watched this happen a thousand times and a thousand times you ignored it, but this is too big to ignore, Dex. You have to talk to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Dex’s tapping sped up. He didn’t, actually, know exactly what Chowder meant, but he could feel himself lurching towards an understanding that was—unfavorable, to put it simply. His tapping became so erratic then that, suddenly, the pen flew from his hand. His heartbeat sounded much louder in the now silent room. He could feel it in his fingertips, where they were pressed against the phone.

Dex had been silent long enough for Chowder’s voice to trade the steel for something, painfully, softer. “I get it,” he said. “This is hard. It sucks. I’m sorry it’s happening.”

Dex stared at his lost pen. He didn’t know how to respond—didn’t want to—and, abruptly, in the background of the call, a soft crying appeared.

“Ah, fuck,” Chowder said, “I’ve got to go.”

Dex wondered vaguely if infancy was too early to sign his niece as a comic, what with her impeccable timing.

“Just,” Chowder said, audibly hovering between the phone and his desire to go soothe his daughter, “just go easy on him, okay?”

Dex didn’t say anything back, as Chowder had already hung up. He held the phone against his cheek for a moment longer before releasing it back into the cradle. He retrieved his pen and set it lengthwise next to his notepad, orderly. His blood felt too quick in his veins. He ached, vaguely, to go for a run.

Ford appeared then in his doorway, distracting the ache, at least momentarily. She held a stack of papers in her hand and he gestured for her to enter. She did, already speaking. “Murray didn’t confirm anything,” she said, approaching Dex’s desk, “but I’m pretty sure if we re-up before any scandals with Falconers we’re good for another year, and hopefully any fallout will have blown over by that time.” She handed Dex the contract, one hand tucked behind her back. “Jack hasn’t gotten back to me, but he said he’d look into it, and Ransom has calls going to several publishing houses up and down the coast.”

“Perfect. Thank you, Ford.” Dex adjusted the contract in his hands, beginning to skim it immediately, thankful for something to do. He reached the end of the first page and realized that Ford was still standing in front of his desk. He glanced up. “Yes?”

She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t reach Nurse, but Bitty answered the phone.”

Dex let the contract drop, for a moment.

“He says that Nurse is there, but not currently, erm, fit for company.”

Dex regathered the contract. “Nothing surprising, then,” he said, and resumed skimming.

“There’s more.”

Dex looked back up, eyebrows raised and expectant.

Ford shuffled in place. “I asked him to tell Nurse that you needed to speak with him, and Bitty became fairly, erm, insistent.”

“Insistent on what?”

Ford took a deep breath. “Insistent on me reading the piece in the _Times_. And getting you to read it, too.” She removed her hidden hand from behind her back and revealed a folded copy of this morning’s paper.

Dex stared. When he didn’t reach up to take it, Ford placed it on his desk. “Did you—?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

Behind her glasses, Ford’s eyes were calm and firm. “I think you should read it, sir.”

Dex let his gaze flit back to the contract in his hands. “Thank you, Ford. That will be all.”

“Sir—”

“That’s all.”

Ford huffed but said nothing more. She turned and left the room and Dex glanced up only as the door shut behind her. He stared at the closed door for some time, then took a deep breath and looked back at the contract.

He got through the first few pages without hiccup. Everything seemed to be typical of a publication contract with a paper, and as Shitty and Lardo likely both had a hand in it, he didn’t expect anything that would screw them over. Even when they acted like editors first, and friends second, the worst they did was, well, let Nursey publish something they knew would screw him over, but they would never let—

Dex stopped.

Within seconds he had the phone ringing. It took three long rings for the call to be answered. “Larissa Duan, _The New York Times_. What can I do you for?”

“What the fuck is this?”

“Hello to you, too.”

“I’m not fucking joking, Lardo, who let this into the contract?”

Lardo huffed, audible tamping out her cigarette. “Shitty said you were cool with everything only an hour ago. What happened between then and now?”

“Do you have the contract in front of you?”

“I’m getting it, hold on.” The sound of shuffling papers filled the line. Dex continued to stare at the contract, the one paragraph that pushed this day from bad to fucking _bad_. “Okay, okay, I found it, you can stop the angry breathing now.”

“Third page, at the bottom.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The sound of pages flipping accompanied Lardo’s mumbling. “Editing note,” she read, in a voice that implied just how crazy she thought Dex was in that moment, “the author gives the _Times_ editors permission to correct all spelling mistakes and formatting issues. They may not change the content of the piece beyond such issues, except for the case of misuse of pronouns for the love interest…” Lardo’s voice slowed as she reached the end of the paragraph. “Oh.”

“See?”

“Fuck.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“I—fuck.” Some commotion could be heard over the line, shifting pages, a squeaking chair. “I’m sorry, Dex, I don’t—I don’t know how we—oh, fuck, I do.”

Dex ground his teeth to keep himself from yelling. “What _happened_?”

“I—I dictated the contract to my assistant, and she must have thought— _fuck_. I made the note to myself, but she must have thought that I wanted her to put it in the contract. Fuck.”

“Fix this,” Dex said, tapping frantically with his no-longer-orderly pen. “Do whatever you have to do, burn it, commit fraud, get it blacked out like the fucking government for all I care, but if this contract ever crosses anyone’s desk aside from yours, mine, or Shitty’s, the repercussions—”

“I know what the consequences are, Dex, thank you.”

Dex exhaled deeply, calming slightly. He couldn’t make himself say _sorry_ , so he said nothing.

Lardo heard it, probably, anyway. “I’ll call Shitty and see what I can do.”

“Is there any possibility that anyone else has seen this yet?” Dex reread the line. _…misuse of pronouns for the love interest, specifically the use of ‘he’ and ‘him’ in place of ‘she’ and ‘her.’_ What kind of nutjob assistant thought that level of specificity was necessary to put in?

“My assistant, but I can make sure this doesn’t go beyond her.”

Dex forced his breathing to slow. “Good.”

It didn’t settle Dex’s nerves, didn’t allow him to slump back into his chair, relieved. Having this contract exist at all was a liability. Having it exist in a building full of professional gossips was even worse. Possibilities tangled up in his mind, a chatty assistant or a hyper-vigilant bigot in the legal office or—God forbid—Georgia Martin wanted a copy of the contract to ensure that Nursey hadn’t signed over more than was obvious. Fuck.

“Stop panicking,” Lardo said, in between asides to whoever she’d called over. “We’ll fix this. You’ll fix this. You always fix it.”

“I fix it by panicking,” Dex said, which wasn’t exactly true, but whatever. “And, you know,” he added in, mid-panic, “it’d be nice if you didn’t help him create things I needed to fix, in the future.”

Lardo said, to whoever she was talking to, “Grab Knight and the vault copy of our contract with Nurse, and be back here in five.” Then, to Dex, she said, “So, you haven’t read it yet.”

Dex closed his eyes and rubbed them, hard. “What gave it away?”

“If you’d read it, you’d know why I helped him publish it.”

Dex groaned and didn’t respond.

Softer than she usually was, Lardo said, “You should read it.”

Dex groaned again, louder. “You too?”

“You should,” she insisted, ignoring him. “It’ll show you why he published it. He didn’t do this just to fuck you over.”

Dex laughed, bitter. “So that’s just a fun side-effect then?”

“ _Dex_.”

Dex pressed his fingers tighter to his face. “Lardo,” he said, tired, “I don’t give a shit why he did it. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that he published it and now I have to fix it.”

“The problem started long before he even wrote it and you knew that.”

Dex clenched his jaw until it hurt.

Lardo sighed. “Look, kid,” she said, and Dex felt like he was back in college, watching her talk around a joint, thinking she held all the secrets of the universe behind the quirk of her lips. “It was always going to come to something like this. Nursey isn’t good at keeping quiet. He’s a storyteller, remember?”

Small without his anger, Dex said, “It wasn’t just his to tell.”

“Yes. It was.” Dex wanted to argue, wanted to ask her how she could say that, knowing them all these years, but she started speaking again before he could. “Shitty’s here. I’ve got to go.” Lardo’s voice got quieter, like it was farther away. “I’ll call you when we find a fix.” Then she hung up.

Dex shoved the phone back in the cradle too harshly and it clanged. The paper, folded a foot away, stared at him. He picked it up, ink smearing instantly against his fingertips. It wasn’t a front page story—Nursey wasn’t big enough for that, yet—but it was mentioned as a featured piece. Page three, D.M. Nurse. _No One Has to Know_.

Dex threw the paper back on his desk. His anger shot through him, hot. He couldn’t—he didn’t want to sit here and stew, waiting for Lardo or Shitty to call back and tell him whether or not Nursey still had a career. They had worked—Nursey had worked so fucking hard and he was going to throw it all away because what? Because he didn’t know how to be quiet?

Dex stood abruptly from his desk and walked over to the small dresser he kept at the office, for emergencies. He extracted from it his running clothes.

Ford said nothing as Dex exited his office, yet he felt her eyes on him until the elevator doors closed regardless.

*~*~*

The first time Dex had read Nursey’s writing, it had been on his own skin.

Dex couldn’t remember how it had started. Probably a rainy day when Nursey was bored and thought trying to connect the freckles on Dex’s skin like a child’s game would be a fun way to pass the time. It became more frequent—Dex would fall asleep around Nursey only to wake up with a rather poorly drawn smiley face decorating his knuckle, or he would get distracted during a studying session to come out of it with flowers dotted down his forearm. After a time, he’d paid no mind when Nursey’s felt tip pen dragged across his skin. It had felt sort of nice, even.

It started with drawings, faces and stick figures and flowers, but eventually Nursey gave in to his literary nature and started covering Dex in words. Random words, like fanciful or hullabaloo, or snippets of poems he’d been reading for class. Dex would come home at the end of the day covered in Nursey’s large, loopy cursive, the black ink so stark against his skin. He took to copying down what Nursey wrote in the back of a mathematics notebook, not ordered, or for any purpose, but something to flip through when the mood struck him.

Thrown in between the random vocabulary words and poetry were reminders. Dex would ask him why _pick up milk_ was scribbled on his wrist, or _write that thing for class_ tucked along a line of his palm. Nursey would laugh, say, “You’re like a talking day planner. I’ll never forget stuff when you’re around.”

Dex should have been annoyed, and he had been, a little, at first, but in a short time he’d started writing down Nursey’s reminders along with his poetry. He’d regale Nursey with the day’s tasks when they met for breakfast, read them out carefully and win something sweet for his trouble, a bowl of strawberries or some syrup-doused pancakes, depending on the day.

One morning, as Dex had relayed the reminders in between bites of blackberries, a line of writing scribbled in between _pick up papers_ and _call mom_ had caught his attention.

Dex remembered the line exactly, as he ran through the streets of New York City, some three years later. _were the world to end at half past nine, I would sit out in the budding flowerbeds and watch you talk, about any little thing, until exactly 9:29_

He remembered asking Nursey about it, pressing him. After a moment, he’d admitted that he’d written it. When Dex asked after its purpose, Nursey’d said that a magazine on campus was taking submissions for poems. Dex had asked where the rest of the poem was, then.

A week later Nursey had handed him a piece of unlined paper filled with inky, slanted cursive. Dex had read it as they’d walked to class, Nursey fidgeting beside him the whole time. Dex remembered the lines in rhythm with his running steps, throwing both the poem and himself off.

_at that final moment, I would rise up from the earth and catch the end of a word from your lips. you would taste like an “actually” or an “if you think about it” and no emotion would register before the world was aflame_

_if I told you this, you would say that it said worrying things about my emotions that I thought of our first kiss in apocalyptic terms. this would make me laugh, and you would smile that smudged, repressed little smile you always do when I laugh, all proud and content, and my chest would light up like a nuclear firework because my emotions about you are always in apocalyptic terms_

Dex couldn’t remember the rest. It had been years since he read it, of course, but he remembered the first three lines so clearly. He knew why, remembered feeling like he wouldn’t ever forget even when he’d read them the first time. Nursey had a way of writing that made someone feel exactly how his narrator felt, and Dex remembered getting to the words _apocalyptic terms_ and thinking _what a way to feel_.

His breath came too quick in his chest. He slowed to a stop and caught himself. This run had been meant as an escape, not a means of thinking about Nursey further. He swallowed and steeled himself and then turned into Central Park.

He didn’t run here often—his regular route from his apartment took him past some community gardens, smaller parks, pleasant trees, so he still saw nature, but Central Park was greener than he was used to. Not as green, of course, as Maine, but it was good enough for a city.

Ma liked to bring that up during her monthly argument for him moving back home. “I’m sure you miss the trees,” she’d say. “You need fresh air!” she’d insist. After a while, when it was clear she wouldn’t be succeeding in convincing him this time, she’d say, “You should at least come visit. How long has it been? Since Christmas?” and Dex would say, “I know, Ma, I should,” and he’d see her again, at Christmas, like always.

He kept his breathing level, picking up speed as he came to a straight stretch of path.

Ma’d had a fit, the first time he’d gone for a run. Thrown up her hands, said that was just what they needed, the neighbors gossiping about the Poindexter boy running from invisible demons. Their town hadn’t taken change well. But he’d been bored in the summers, bored before work when the sun rose too early, light crashing through his broken shade and bringing him into the day. He thought he’d put that time to good use. Idle hands, and all. Since baseball had ended by then, he needed the extra exercise, and so with daybreak, he’d be out, running, and Ma would see him in when he came back and pitch a fit, and still, he went.

Sometimes he wondered if that had been the start of it. Start of choices that Ma didn’t like. He’d never disobeyed her before that, never thought to. He’d been raised a good, God-fearing boy, who liked to help his mother with chores and babysat his cousins without complaint and would never have thought of going to the dark end of the beach with a boy, drunk off fear and shitty beer. Then came the summer before high school, and Dex had started running, and never quite managed to stop.

He jogged past women with strollers, people chatting on benches, ducks swimming in the pond. He found himself surprised that the park was so full, even though he shouldn’t have been. They’d had a few unexpectedly warm winter days recently and everyone seemed to be taking advantage.

No one here knew him, though, as packed as it was. Growing up in a town where people knew him as a Poindexter boy, saw his ma at the grocery, his dad at the bank, Dex had learned to be careful under watchful eyes. But in the city, though the eyes had doubled, or tripled even, none of them lingered long enough to care. If he ran from invisible demons, that was his prerogative. There was a freedom in the clutter.

As he passed a street vendor, his stomach rumbled. He realized then that he hadn’t eaten anything that morning in his rush to get into work. He knew there was a deli a block from where he was, so he cut his run—and his thoughts—short and decided to get a bagel.

The deli was full, when he reached it, had him squeezing into a line just barely kept within the shop. When he reached the front, finally, he placed his order and hurried off to the side, finding himself tucked behind some tables, set out for people dining in.

As he checked his watch to make sure he hadn’t been gone too long from the office, a pair of women’s voices reached him through the din of the shop. “…passion in the words,” one woman in a bright pink hat was saying to her friend. “You can really feel the longing,” she said, intense.

The responding woman, in a thick wool jacket, too hot for the current weather, said, “I _know_. What I wouldn’t give to be loved like he loves her.”

Pink Hat giggled. “Oh, you’re so bad! George loves you.”

Wool Jacket rolled her eyes. “He loves me enough to keep coming home at night, but it’s _nothing_ like Noah loves Denise.”

“No one loves like Noah loves Denise,” Pink Hat said, dreamy. “It’s unreal!”

Wool Jacket shook her head. “No, no, one person does, and it’s that author. Who could just imagine that kind of emotion?”

“Oh, you’re _right_.” Pink Hat seemed to have some kind of revelation. “Oh, imagine being that girl. The one he loves.” The man at the register signaled that Dex’s order was complete and he stepped up to pay as Pink Hat said, “Whoever D. M. Nurse is in love with, she’s the luckiest woman on the planet.”

Dex froze at the counter of the bagel shop. The cashier handed him back his change and he took it, mechanical, and grabbed his bag in the same fashion.

He hurried out of the bagel shop, ignoring the pile of papers stacked by the door.

*~*~*

“Oh, sir.” Ford popped up from behind her desk as Dex entered the office, eating one quarter of his bagel. She wrinkled her nose at his sweaty clothing but followed him into his office regardless. “There have been some developments.”

Dex sat down at his desk and continued to eat.

Ford read off her notepad. “Mashkov got back to Jack and said that Martin didn’t exactly buy it this morning, but if we get her something in two weeks she’ll be impressed enough to let it go.”

Dex inclined his head.

Ford nodded back. “I thought so, too. Ransom called and he hasn’t heard from everyone yet, but he says that everyone he’s talked to loves it. Two places hinted at wanting a contract with Nurse.”

Dex tilted his head to the side.

Ford winced mildly. “Yes, I don’t know how long that will last if we burn Falconers, but it’s still good news, I thought.”

Dex nodded.

Ford continued. “Lardo called just now and said, ‘I can fix it, but I need Nurse.’” She looked up from her notepad. “She said you would know what she meant.”

Dex screwed his mouth up.

Ford frowned. “Oh.”

“Get me Shitty or Lardo, please.”

Ford nodded once. “Will do, sir.”

Within a minute, he was talking to Shitty in between bites of his bagel.

“We can’t just get it redacted like government papers,” Shitty explained, rustling sounds in the background. “We tracked down all the copies—of which there were only two!—and disposed of them, but we legally can’t get rid of the vault copy. The only way to change it is to get Nursey to sign off on changing it, so we need him to come in to work it out.”

Dex picked up the last quarter of his bagel and took a bite. “Will we need a lawyer?”

“You’re talking to one.”

“I mean a real lawyer.”

“Hey!” The rustling stopped. “I’m technically a real lawyer, even if I’m not a practicing one.”

“Do we need a practicing lawyer?” Dex clarified, to keep the conversation from derailing further.

“No, we should be fine with just the two of us. We talked to legal and they trust us not to screw anything up.”

Dex sighed. “Good.”

“Hey, man, we get it. We want as few people involved in this as possible.”

Dex dropped his bagel in favor of rubbing at his temples again. That seemed like a lost cause at this point, if everyone from Chowder to Ford was telling him to read the damn piece. Noah and Denise? _Really_? Dex thought that Nursey was supposed to be good at the hidden meaning thing.

“Thank you,” Dex said, instead of any of that. “I’ll get him over there tomorrow afternoon, hopefully. Until then, try to keep it from becoming a thing?”

“You got it, boss.”

Dex nodded and hung up.

The paper still sat on his desk, staring. Dex thought of stark black ink on pale white skin. _What a way to feel_. He began to reach for it, something thudding hot and firm in his chest.

A knock at the door dropped his hand. He looked up to see Ford already coming in. “Sorry to barge in, sir, but I’m about to go on my lunch break and I wanted to know if there’s anything else I can do before I leave.”

Dex looked briefly at the paper, then back to her. He shook his head. “No, that’s alright, Ford. There’s only one thing left to do, really.”

Ford quirked her eyebrows, which made her glasses move. “What’s that?”

Dex smiled, brittle. “Talk to Nursey.”

*~*~*

After a quick change out of his running clothes, Dex prepared himself to leave the office. He doubted that Nursey would be up and functioning this early in the day, so he resolved to bring home some busy work to occupy himself. But as he went to add the work to his briefcase, he couldn’t find the contract drafts he was looking for, and he’d sent Ford home for the day so he couldn’t ask her if she’d seen them. After a thorough search of his desk—which showed him that he’d need to take an afternoon to organize the damn thing—he found neither hide nor hair of the drafts. But sitting at the bottom of his lowermost drawer was a flier he’d been given a month back advertising Jack’s gallery.

He picked up the flier, thumbing its creased corner. The gallery had opened a month or so ago, but it would remain open until the end of the week. Dex had meant to go when it opened, kept the flier as a reminder, but the past month had been so busy, what with the Falconers deal and the two new clients Dex had picked up. Dex scanned the flier again and realized the gallery was just a block away from the route Dex took home from work. He decided, then, to stop his search for the contract drafts and shoved the flier into his briefcase instead.

The gallery, when he got there, was not insignificantly busy, and Jack was probably somewhere in the back if he was there at all. Dex checked his briefcase at the door and then wandered, following the general progression of how the gallery had been laid out.

The photos were from a trip they’d all taken over the summer. Mostly landscapes, scenery. Jack had a way of playing with sunlight that was always interesting. Dex hadn’t ever been that intrigued by art, photography included, but since he’d entered the art world, at least managerially, he’d acquired an affinity for knowing what things were “good.”

Still, looking at Jack’s photographs, Dex didn’t think about how technically perfect they were, or how interesting, or how he could market them. He looked at a picture of shoes fallen on the beach and remembered how Chowder had yelled “Race you to the shore!” the second they’d gotten out of the car, and Dex had burned his feet in the sand trying to keep up. He looked at the sunrise breaking through the window over the sink in the rented beach house kitchen and remembered how Bitty had sung as he’d made them all breakfast, how he’d gotten Dex to sing, too. He looked at a picture of a sunset obscured by trees and remembered that last night on the beach, when they had all gotten drunk and stumbled out of the house just before dusk fell completely and they’d sat, quiet, in a simple way they’d never quite managed in college.

There was a picture of them—a few of them, Bitty and Lardo and Nursey—towards the end of the exhibit. Jack didn’t do many portraits—or didn’t publicize many portraits, to be more accurate. Dex had never asked him why, but he figured that the idea of strangers looking at their private moments itched at him the same way it did Dex. But, Dex knew, everyone in the gallery had consented to being there, so, without much debate, Dex looked.

Bitty had been drunk. Too much sangria. His mouth was pink. He was laughing, his head thrown onto Lardo’s thigh, and she held a cup against her lips like she was hiding something. A smile, most likely, but unless you knew her, you probably wouldn’t guess that. Nursey was in the background, caught accidentally in the frame. He was wearing one of Dex’s button down shirts, unbuttoned completely, and carrying the next pitcher of sangria. Dex remembered that moment, because two seconds later he tripped on nothing and the entire pitcher ended up on Nursey—and Dex’s shirt.

Dex stood in front of the picture longer than he’d stood in front of any other. People milled by him, some of them stopping to look, too. He wondered what they saw in it, wondered if they could guess the next frame.

“He dropped that all over himself,” he wanted to tell each person who stood next to him. “He drenched my shirt. He tried to wash it, but it’s still pink. It smells like oranges and sugar. It’s still in my closet. I didn’t throw it out. I don’t know why I didn’t throw it out, because it makes my whole closet smell like oranges and sugar, but I look at it sometimes in the mornings and laugh thinking about the dumb fucking look on his face when he dropped that whole pitcher, and did you know there’s a picture of it? It’s horrible and blurry because Jack was laughing as he took it, and he’d never hang it in a gallery like this but, fuck, I wish it was here, I wish I could see that look, I haven’t seen him that stupidly happy since that day and I miss it, I _miss_ it, I—”

“You made it.”

Dex inhaled, sharp, and turned to see Jack next to him. He nodded. “Yeah. Yes.” He looked back at the picture. “Thought I would drop by on my way home from work.”

Jack frowned and said, “I thought you didn’t work on Saturdays.”

“I don’t, usually.” Dex traced the path of Bitty’s laughing body, the focal point of the piece. “But with everything with Nursey, I had to go in.”

“Everything with Nursey?”

Dex stared at Bitty’s sangria stained mouth for a moment before he heard Jack’s words. He turned, frowning. “You don’t know?”

Jack shook his head. “Ford called and told me to call Tater and ask him if Georgia believed you. That’s all I was told.”

“You didn’t see the _Times_ this morning?”

“Oh. No.” A soft flush covered Jack’s cheeks. “I was running late this morning. Bitty had been—well.”

“Huh.”

“What happened?” Jack asked, not worried exactly, just sort of curious.

Dex said, “He published—we had a contract with Falconers for a short story and he published it this morning in the _Times_.”

“Oh,” Jack said, as if Dex had told him that Nursey brought him the wrong coffee order.

Dex laughed, a huff of air through an open smile.

“Did you fix it?” Jack asked, when Dex didn’t say anything more.

“Almost.”

Jack nodded. “That’s good.”

“Hmm.” Dex stared at Nursey, his hands on the pitcher, Dex’s shirt. “Do you still have the film from the rest of this?”

“After Nursey tripped? Yes. Somewhere.”

Nursey had been so dumbfounded after he’d dropped the pitcher. Everyone had died laughing, Dex included. His stomach hurt so much that he’d curled over, holding it, and when he finally could hold himself upright, he saw Nursey grinning, wide and almost disbelieving. “I ruined your shirt,” he said, eyes twinkling, and it had set Dex off again and Nursey had laughed back and—and he had just been so _happy_.

After that, Dex had gotten them the deal with Falconers. Stuff with his other clients had gotten intense, and so he’d mostly spoken to Nursey over the phone. “Are you keeping up with the deadlines?” he’d ask and Nursey would say, “Yes, Dexy-darling.” They’d seen each other once since the beach, at a party at Shitty and Lardo’s a week or so back. Nursey had started drinking early, and Dex had ended up leaving before everyone else to get Nursey back into bed before he’d fallen asleep somewhere less favorable. Maneuvering a drunken Nursey was unfortunately one of Dex’s more practiced skills, and as he’d been trying to keep Nursey upright and unlock his door at the same time, Nursey had begun to recite an Emily Dickinson poem.

“So we must meet apart,” Nursey said, mouth moving against the skin of Dex’s neck. “You there—I here. With just the door ajar. That oceans are and prayer and that white sustenance, despair.”

Dex had gone home and looked up the line, remembering it from something. He’d found it in that old mathematics notebook, the one he’d used to store the lines of poetry Nursey wrote on him. He found the poem itself in a book he didn’t remember buying. The first stanza had made him sad when he’d read it, and made him sad again now, thinking of it. _I cannot live with You – It would be Life – And Life is over there – Behind the Shelf_.

“Dex?”

“Yes, yes, sorry.” Dex shook his head and turned to Jack. “Another great exhibit, as always.”

Jack smiled, even as confusion persisted in the crinkles next to his eyes. No artist could resist a compliment. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Me too.”

The silence dragged for a moment before another patron of the gallery noticed that the photographer was there and drew Jack’s attention away. Dex got his briefcase from the coat check and walked back onto the street to find the sun much lower in the sky than it had been when he’d walked in. He hurried back home to shower and change into clothes more appropriate for a Saturday. He made himself a small dinner, ate it alone in his dining room, quiet.

When he’d washed the dishes, dried them, and put them away, there was still an hour left before Bitty’s doors would reopen for the night. The paper sat in his living room, on the coffee table where he’d thrown it when he’d come home. He stared at it, and it stared at him, until he gave in, sat down, and began to read.

*~*~*

Dex kept the paper tucked between his elbow and his ribcage as he hailed a cab. Dusk had begun to set in and the yellow streetlamp lighting made everything soft looking. He shut the door behind him and told the driver the address for Bitty’s. Then he settled back in his seat and pulled the paper out again.

_If love was the stuff of birthday balloons, Noah would have been lifted up to the stars years ago_.

Dex huffed. A flowery first line.

_The first time he saw her, he thought she was lost. “Who let someone like you into a place like this?” he asked her._

_She turned pink, from the top of her pretty round nose down to the shadowed start of her collarbone. She said that no one let her anywhere, she made her own decisions, thank you very much, and promptly cussed Noah out. She left the first balloon in her wake as she stomped out of the room and Noah, like an idiot, grabbed onto the string._

_He would like to be clear: this is not a love story._

_A love story would be the tale of a man who built himself a rocket to meet his lover on her own planet. A love story would be the tale of a man who stole himself a spacecraft to grab his girl a star. A love story would be anything but the tale of a man who took balloons for something like reciprocation and lifted himself into the darkness of an endless space with the fanciful idea that someone would be floating along with him._

_He would also like to be clear: Denise is worth every damn second spent alone in that void._

That line stopped his breath, as it had the first time he’d read it.

Technically, he noted that it could use some work. The rhythm was off and the tone, while intense, registered as naively so, and it didn’t quite set up the story following it told by a narrator whose most prominent trait was his unflinching self-awareness.

But reading that line and giving it the air in his lungs, Dex wasn’t the agent, wasn’t the guy who had to market the piece. No, instead he was the object of that line, the one worth the blindness and loneliness and ice coldness of space. And he wasn’t, he knew, but the thought of Nursey thinking it—it was difficult to get past, and so Dex didn’t, reading it over and over until he got dizzy with the breathlessness.

The cab pulled up to the curb outside Bitty’s in a short time. Dex paid, and exited, and stood outside the bakery without entering. The front room where, in the daytime, patrons sat over coffee and pastries was now dark. Deeper in the building, in the back room, a yellow light was on, illuminating Bitty’s silhouette in the doorway as he swept up the floured kitchen floor. Dex couldn’t see beyond that, though, couldn’t tell if someone sat on the counter opposite him, feet swinging, joking through a bitten lip about how angry Dex must be.

Dex took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Took you long enough,” Bitty called out. He flicked on the light for the front room and followed in after it, broom in one hand, other hand on his hip. “He nearly started in on tonight’s stock before I corralled him back upstairs.”

Dex held back the relief. “That bad?” he asked.

Bitty quirked his eyebrow, enough condescension and care wrapped into the one flicker of movement to convey the _what do you think_ concealed behind it.

“I know,” Dex said, shrugging. “I was just hoping. Maybe.”

The eyebrow softened. “Would you like a drink, hon?”

Dex exhaled, deep. “Thank God, yes.”

Bitty hadn’t finished setting up for the shift from bakery to bar yet. The bakery tables were still set up—no room for dancing, yet—and the bar stools hadn’t been lined up by the glass display cases, though the liquor was already fully stocked. Dex borrowed a chair from a nearby table and settled down next to the checkout counter as Bitty grabbed a glass and something dark. Dex threw the paper down onto the counter and ignored Bitty’s glance at it.

“He came in last night?” Dex asked, watching Bitty work. He could imagine Nursey sitting in the same chair, watching the same thing. Except, of course, with other patrons around. There had probably been a man. A majority of Nursey’s bad decisions came with a man somewhere before. Or after.

Bitty hummed, pushing over the full shot glass.

“You served him?”

Bitty’s look was firm, but not without warmth. “I serve paying clientele.”

Dex nodded, once to himself, and then again at Bitty. He fidgeted with the glass for a moment before tossing his head back and downing it. He didn’t drink often anymore. The burn was heady and lasting.

“I cut him off quick,” Bitty said, moving around the counter to continue rearranging the furniture. “He’d come in already a bit—sloppy.”

Dex muttered a curse to himself. Nursey rarely got drunk in regular bars, which either meant he’d been drinking alone or he’d gone to one of the other places around town. Dex didn’t know which option was worse, so he forced himself to stop thinking about it.

“I didn’t know he was so—I didn’t know how bad it had gotten,” Bitty said, the soft scraping of the chair legs against the wooden floor almost covering his words. Dex turned enough to see the shadowed apology in Bitty’s face.

Dex huffed, bitter, and turned forwards again. “Neither did I,” he said, the honesty curling his lips.

“Hey.” Bitty’s hand fell on Dex’s shoulder, squeezing. “It’s not on you, hon.”

Dex laughed, short and angry. “You don’t believe that.” _I don’t believe that_ , he smothered under his tongue. He longed for another shot. His body still felt too present, his mind too clear. He understood, in that moment, why Nursey drank the way he had the night before. Anything was better than that painful self-awareness.

“Why do you say that?” Bitty asked, quiet.

The unyielding warmth of Bitty’s hand was suddenly too much, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. “You all—all of you kept telling me to _read it_ , wanted me to—to stop ignoring it because it was breaking him. You’ve all watched me do it for years. Of fucking course you blame me. Of—of course it’s on me.”

“Hon,” Bitty said—and Dex couldn’t see him, had his back to Bitty, but he could _see_ the way Bitty shook his head, see the roundness of his eyes and the slump of his shoulders, he _knew_ the way Bitty said hon like that, like the way someone might tell you they love you when you show them your worst parts, like he knew homesickness for a mother that didn’t look at you the same anymore, like a mother who never stopped hugging you just as tight because Bitty was determined to _be that_ for whoever needed it, and the part of Dex that he didn’t let out very often wanted to fold himself into Bitty’s arms until this day was over, so he held himself still and tight and—“Hon, I told you to read it because I thought that you should _know_.”

Dex licked his lips, dry, wished for more alcohol, shook his head. “I knew,” he said, whispered, “I already knew.”

Bitty’s hand didn’t move from Dex’s shoulder. “You didn’t,” he said. “Not really.”

He was both right, and not right. Of course Dex knew. The way Nursey laughed at something he’d said and then sobered, quick, smiling, eyes like stars burning on Dex’s skin. The poetry he whispered, when he was drunk and handsy and purposefully forgot what personal space was. The quiet moments, when Dex would look over to find Nursey already there, already smiling, small warm things that didn’t even know they existed until Dex returned them and they would grow, wide enough to split.

It would’ve been impossible for Dex not to know. Everybody knew. It was one of those secrets whose name you never quite pronounced but could trace the syllables of like the line of your own teeth.

Nursey was in love with Dex.

But there was a difference, a very pointed, visceral difference, between knowing something without speaking its name and reading the shouted confessions twined within its throat. Dex hadn’t wanted to read it, had avoided it all morning, because he knew the way that Nursey felt things, and Dex had long since stopped enjoying bloody things, no longer itched for a fight the way the broken skin of his knuckles showed he once had. Reading the way Nursey loved him hurt so much more than knowing it like some kind of chaste fact. Nursey’s love was violent and unbearable and endless. It took the ignorance the world showed it and screamed its own name until its throat gave out. _I am here, I am here, I am **here**_.

_He must be so tired_ , Dex thought, staring into the empty shot glass between his fingers. What a thing to waste his energy on.

Dex inhaled, held it. On the exhale, he said, “He’s upstairs?” 

Bitty squeezed his shoulder, once, and hard. It slipped away as Dex stood.

The walk up to Jack and Bitty’s apartment was functionally short, but currently quite difficult. Dex let his hand drag against the railing, leaned into every creaky step. He wanted Nursey to know he was coming. He could give him that, at least.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t want Nursey knowing that he did. He’d spent the day wishing that Nursey was just _there_ , in the office, on the phone, but he hadn’t prepared himself for the moment that he actually was.

He smiled like a bruise. “Hey, Dex,” he said quietly.

Dex took a seat opposite him. The length of Jack and Bitty’s dining room table stretched between them, but still it felt too close.

Nursey tilted his head slightly, winced preemptively. “Are you mad?”

Dex dropped his hands on the table, repressed the urge to tap. “Of course I’m mad,” he said, sighing. “You know how much I hate talking on the phone and I had to spend my whole Saturday morning doing it.”

Nursey huffed, smiling. “Sorry,” he said, and then, more sincere, “sorry you missed your diner breakfast with Shirley.”

Dex shrugged. “She’ll be there next week.”

Nursey stared at him, smiling distractedly. Dex couldn’t look away—it’d be too obvious—but it made him panicky to meet his stare. He started drumming his fingers against the table and Nursey’s eyes flickered downwards. The smile smudged away.

“What’s the damage?” he asked Dex’s hands.

“You have two weeks to write something better than today’s story for Martin or we’re going to be burned from anywhere but Samwell for at least a year.”

Nursey hummed, distracted, unconcerned.

Irked, Dex flicked one hand out. “But that isn’t our worst problem.”

Nursey glanced up, eyebrows raised.

He looked—soft, open. Dex tightened his jaw and released it. Nursey had to know, if they were going to fix it. “Lardo dictated the publishing contract to her assistant and made a note to herself to change the love interest pronouns from male to female. The assistant misunderstood and put it in the contract.”

Panic grew quick and fidgety in Nursey.

Dex hurried to say, “We can fix it. You need to go in tomorrow and work out the change with Shitty and Lardo, and it should be fine. They got rid of all the other copies and the only people who know are me, Shitty, and Lardo. Lardo’s going to deal with the assistant.” Dex didn’t like to promise things he wasn’t sure of, but he added, “It will be fine,” in an attempt to slow the vines of anxiety curling visibly around Nursey’s body.

Nursey exhaled, shaky. “Fuck. I’m—I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s—” Nursey shook his head, reaching up to smooth a hand over his head. He brought his legs up so he could hug his free arm around his knees, balling himself up in the secondhand dining chair Bitty’d found almost a full set of at a garage sale a few years back. Actually, Nursey was sitting in the replica Dex had made, to finish the set. It held Nursey’s shifting weight with ease. Dex ached. Nursey gestured with the hand not wrapped around his legs. “It wasn’t Martin’s piece.”

Dex’s eyes snapped up to Nursey’s. “What.”

Nursey rubbed at his eyes, shaking his head. “It—the piece for Martin is almost done. It needs some editing, but.” He shrugged. “It should be good.”

Dex’s mind spun. He’d felt so forgiving, and so quickly, he’d just—“So you had a fully finished short story capable of making every publishing house on the coast lose their collective shit just—just sitting in a drawer for a rainy day?” The agent in Dex seethed. “What the fuck, Nursey.”

Nursey laughed, eyes covered. “Every publishing house? Come on, Dexy, you’ll give me a big head.”

“ _Every_. I’m not feeding your ego, I had Ransom check.”

Nursey dropped his hand so it covered his mouth instead. His eyes were shiny, like the waves in Maine during the winter, chilled but not frozen. “I wrote it last week,” he said, muffled, into his palm.

Dex thought back. A week ago, he’d brought Nursey home from Shitty and Lardo’s party, handsy and reciting. He imagined Nursey waking with a hangover, cotton-mouthed and aching. He imagined Nursey reaching for paper and pen, scribbling away in his loopy slanted cursive until his hands were stained in ink. He probably brought it to Shitty and Lardo unedited, probably went straight to the bar after signing that damn contract.

Seven years they’d spent writing that story and in a handful of days Nursey’d given it to the world.

“I’m sorry,” Nursey said again, staring again at Dex’s tapping hands. “I know I shouldn’t’ve—I shouldn’t have done it.”

Dex kept tapping. Unable to stop himself, really. Seven years they’d gone—maybe slightly less than that actually, but still—seven years they hadn’t talked about it, hadn’t _needed_ to talk about it, Dex had thought, and now it was printed, black and white, for women in bagel shops to coo over.

“I know that you don’t feel—and I should be grateful that you—that you deal with how I—” Nursey swallowed, tight. “I just, I wanted someone to—know. To know how it felt. To love so much that—that it doesn’t matter if they love you back, because they’re worth the love anyway, they’re—”

“Nursey,” Dex said, too quiet.

Nursey kept going. “Dex, you’re so…you’re so good, you know? You—you make everything _better_ and you just—”

“ _Nursey_ , please, I—”

Nursey stopped, staring, eyes like home broken open and—

And seven years they’d spent writing that story and, somehow, Nursey had gotten it so, so _wrong_.

Everyone knew. Everyone who knew them, who watched Nursey lean his body into Dex’s at every chance, who listened to them argue with Nursey throwing out pet names like _Dexy-darling_ in between barbs, who knew how Nursey trusted Dex to solve whatever mess he got himself into, everyone knew that Nursey was in love with Dex. But no one seemed to realize the most important part.

No one seemed to realize that Dex was in love with Nursey, too.

Dex had thought it was obvious. Obvious in the way he made space in his own body for Nursey’s to reside, obvious in how his skin pinked from his cheeks to his ears at the pet names Nursey invented, obvious in how Dex would fight the whole fucking world a million times over to fix whatever Nursey needed fixing. He’d thought that everyone had known, everyone from his own mother to fucking _Nursey_.

Apparently, Dex was better at being subtle than he’d thought.

“I’m sorry,” Nursey said, again, when Dex sat silent for too long.

Dex shut his eyes. “Stop saying that.” Nursey never apologized when he fucked up. He laughed and pushed his shoulder against Dex’s, said, “Whatever would I do without you,” and Dex would glare at him and think _you’ll never have to know_.

“But I fucked up this time,” Nursey said, small. “I—fucked up bad.”

Dex shook his head, shutting his eyes tighter. “You have a piece for Martin, Shitty can fix the contract, this isn’t—”

“I don’t mean that stuff. That’s—that’s—”

“Your career, Nursey.”

“Fuck my career.”

Dex’s eyes shot open. “As your agent, I would advise against that.”

Nursey laughed, something shattering in his eyes like heavy footsteps over a frozen lake. “Is that it, now?” he asked, scratchy. “You’ll be my agent and that’s it?”

“What? No, why the fuck—”

“I’ve tried so hard,” Nursey said, voice so quiet it was hard to hear, but it had Dex silent, anyway. “I’ve tried for years to stop—stop feeling the way I do because I knew you could only deal with it for so long, but, fuck, Dex, I can’t. I can’t.”

Dex inhaled, slow, and curled his hands together tightly on the table.

Nursey stared at Dex’s fists. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and Dex lost it.

He slammed his hands down on the table and Nursey jumped. “ _Stop saying that_.”

Nursey stared, wide-eyed.

“I won’t sit here and listen to you say this shit like it’s at all your fucking fault, Nursey, God, _I’m_ the one who let you live all these years thinking that I didn’t—that I don’t—” Dex rubbed his hands over his face, jaw clenching, aching. He tilted his head down until he could cradle the top of his head in his hands. “I’m the one,” he said to the floor, “I’m the one who should be saying sorry.”

“What—Dex, what are you—” Nursey’s silence lingered, loud. “Are you saying—?”

Dex looked up. “Of course I love you,” he said, hoarse.

Nursey stared. He held himself tight, eyes wide, more fear coiled in his body now than when Dex had walked in. “What do you mean of course you love me.”

Dex meant to keep it together, meant to stay calm, but the laughter bubbled from his throat, panicked and chaotic, and he just started—talking. “I kept a notebook full of the poetry you wrote on my arms. I picked a job in New York City because you were living here. I gave up that job to be your agent even though I had _no experience_ just because you asked me to. Nursey, how wasn’t it obvious? I thought it—I thought it was _obvious_.”

Nursey shook his head slowly, mouth open around silence. He formed several words and didn’t say them. Dex watched his mouth and wondered if he could’ve been doing it all these years, letting his stares linger, even with Nursey watching. Would it have made a difference, if he had?

“But you knew,” Nursey finally said, disbelief curled between the syllables. “You knew how I—how I felt.”

Dex nodded.

Nursey started shaking his head again, quick, and didn’t stop. “Then why didn’t you—why didn’t you _say anything_?”

“Nursey…” Dex swallowed. He’d thought Nursey had understood, thought for years they’d had a silent understanding. He never thought he’d have to say it out loud.

“ _Dex_.”

“I don’t—Nursey, we’d never work, we—if anything, this whole thing proves that we wouldn’t.”

“ _Why not_.”

“Because I’m not like you,” Dex said, desperate, holding up his empty hands. “I can’t—I could never be like Jack and Bitty, I couldn’t live above a bakery turned boy bar and have everyone know that I—” He shook his head. “I couldn’t be—open. Like that.”

“Who’s asking you to be?” Nursey pushed forward, body as close to the table edge as he could get, and Dex wondered what would happen if the table wasn’t between them.

The laughter tasted bitter on Dex’s tongue. “You published your feelings in the biggest newspaper in the country!”

“Because I didn’t think you felt the same!”

Dex couldn’t stop the crazed laughter in his throat. “No, because you can’t be quiet and you know it.”

Nursey had completely uncoiled somewhere in the yelling, open and shaking. “Dex.” He swallowed, visible. “I have spent years of my life trying not to love you when I thought I was alone in this.” His eyes were the green of the sea in a thunderstorm. “How the fuck am I meant to do it when I know you love me back?”

Dex had spent seven years trying to do that very thing with no success. He said nothing.

Nursey seemed to hear it, anyway. “Is that what you thought we’d do?” He stared, disbelieving. “We’d go on loving each other for the rest of our lives, not doing anything about it, because you couldn’t be open and I couldn’t not?”

Dex shook his head. “I thought you’d get over it,” he said. “Eventually.”

“And you?”

Dex shrugged.

Nursey laughed, high and short. “You self-sacrificing dick.”

Dex shrugged again, and Nursey laughed again. He laughed longer, this time, long enough for it to come apart on his tongue, spread the disjointedness through his whole body. Dex longed to go over and hold him together but he didn’t trust himself without the table between them.

In time, Nursey settled. Dex watched him piece himself back together, bones fitting back into place, tension bleeding back to its usual spots. Dex had seen it happen before, been there for breakdowns, sober and not, had helped Nursey collect himself, some of the time. He was always struck, when he watched it, by how strong Nursey must’ve been, to walk around the world holding himself together with his own bloodied hands. Watching, now, all Dex could think about was how many years he’d spent making it worse.

“Bitty’s opening up soon,” Dex said, raspy. He swallowed and said, clearer, “We should—” _Go home_ , he wanted to say. “—get going,” he actually said.

Nursey wiped a hand over his face and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

They stood from the table. Dex steeled himself and stepped away from it, nothing but air between him and Nursey, now. Chilled air, actually, Bitty probably hadn’t turned the heat on today on account of how warm it’d been.

“Do you have a coat?” Dex asked, watching Nursey carefully as he approached the door.

Nursey shook his head. “It was warm yesterday. Didn’t need one.”

Dex slipped off his jacket and held it out. Nursey stared at it long enough for Dex’s face to heat. “Just take it. You’ve done it before.”

Nursey looked up from the coat to Dex. He held that for some time, staring, and Dex didn’t know what he wanted, couldn’t reassure him in any kind of way, so he just stood there, blushing, arm outstretched.

Finally, Nursey took the jacket. It fit him close, but not uncomfortable. Dex watched the line of his shoulders as he left the apartment. Dex followed him out.

Downstairs, the first few patrons had already arrived. A pair were dancing, chaste, to the low music playing in the corner, and one man sat at Bitty’s counter, chatting amiably. Bitty was smiling, talking, but he looked up as Nursey and Dex walked in. His smile didn’t flicker, but his eyebrows rose in question. Dex—didn’t have an answer, so he just nodded in parting. Nursey waved.

Colder than he’d been expecting, Dex wrapped his arms around himself when they got outside. He surveyed the street and frowned. “No cabs.”

“It’s not too far a walk,” Nursey said. Dex turned to him, but Nursey was looking ahead, down the block.

“Alright,” Dex said, tracing the line of his profile. “Let’s walk.”

*~*~*

By the second block, Dex started tapping his fingers against his pant leg.

Silence usually worked for him, Dex liked a good bout of silence here and there, but currently the silence emanating from Nursey was so loud it hurt his head and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

The only thing Dex could think to talk about was—well, probably not a good idea, but it had to be better than nothing. “Martin read your piece.”

“I’ll bet.”

Dex swallowed, tight. “She said it was brilliant.”

“Come now, Poindoodle, my self-esteem is large enough as it is.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” Nursey threw his hands about him dramatically. “One more compliment and my head will grow too large to be held up by my body. You’ll have to hire someone to carry it around with me, and that will not help at all, because he’ll be so enamored with my beautiful visage that he’ll just _have_ to compliment it, and the growth of my skull will increase exponentially.” He looked over at Dex at the end of his monologue and whatever expression graced Dex’s face had him giggling.

“Exponential,” Dex said, when Nursey had calmed, somewhat. “Nice math word.”

“I know my audience,” Nursey said, winking, and Dex cracked a smile despite his efforts to restrain it.

Nursey smiled, triumphant, in having won a grin, and looked forward once again.

Dex—didn’t. He continued to look at Nursey. It wasn’t difficult to see the cracks—Nursey’s hands shook slightly and his shoulders had slipped to make himself look smaller, unconscious. It would’ve been impossible, Dex was sure, for him to disguise the breakage completely. Too much emotion for that.

_Apocalyptic terms_. Dex imagined that Nursey’s chest looked like a bomb shelter turned inside out. All the soft things inside him locked in with the nuclear feelings he never could control. Dex’s teeth clenched and he looked forward, shoving his tapping hands into the pockets of his pants. No wonder Nursey did things like publishing his heartbreak for all the world to read. How else does a body that wracked in nuclear fallout find some release?

“Jack let me look through some pictures last night,” Nursey said, abruptly. “The stuff from the summer that didn’t end up in the gallery.”

“Hmm.” Dex balled his hands up tight in his pockets. Seven years Nursey had gone with Dex letting him blow up, endless.

“There were some really good ones. I told him he could hand them out as Christmas presents and no one would complain.” Dex said nothing, so Nursey continued. “Remember when I tripped and dropped that whole thing of sangria on myself?”

“Tripped on nothing? Yeah.”

“Hey! I swear there was a shoe on the ground—but anyway, he had pictures from after that that weren’t too messed up and there’s one of you just,” Nursey laughed to himself, “just doubled over, holding your stomach, the whole thing, and your face—it looked like it hurt, how wide you were smiling, I swear.”

Dex thought of the oranges and sugar. Thought of that trip, the beach, how quiet it had been, how private. On that last night, sitting out by the water, they had all just existed for a few minutes, maybe an hour. Dex had looked over and seen Jack and Bitty just—curled up. Together, around each other. No one else but their family had been on that beach and they’d been able to just—be.

Dex looked about him. This time of night, in this part of town, the streets were somewhat full with others going about their Saturday nights. People dressed in tight, colorful clothes, laughing with alcohol on their tongues, smiling. None of them looked twice at Dex and Nursey, walking quietly next to one another, some inches between them. Dex’s heart jumped, dangerous. He wondered, if he grabbed Nursey’s hand, would anyone even notice?

“That was a good trip,” Nursey said, oblivious to how Dex’s head spun beside him. _So fucking oblivious_ , Dex thought, staring at him. _God, I love him_.

When Dex had been deciding what to do with his life after college, he’d been sending out résumés to anyone who’d take it. Weeks out from graduation, Nursey’d been lying on his floor smoking a joint as Dex edited a paper for a class. After the fifth time he’d warned Nursey not to put anymore burn marks in his carpet or he’d be paying Dex back his security deposit, Nursey had told him to _chill out_ and Dex had said, “How am I meant to chill out when I have no clue what I want to do with the rest of my life?”

Nursey had looked at him—upside down, from the floor—and, serious but smiling, said, “Dex. In a few weeks, I am going to be an unknown writer living in New York. I am using my degree to do the opposite of make money. I will probably go hungry within the year and end up begging my parents to help. Or moving in with you.”

Dex remembered being frustrated, remembered asking, “What are you—”

Nursey had spoken over him. “What I’m _saying_ is that I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think that it was the only thing I could do with my life that would make me happy.”

Dex—hadn’t known what to say. So he’d said nothing.

Nursey had gestured with the joint distractedly—Dex remembered the anxiety he’d felt about it falling—as he’d said, “I know we don’t agree about philosophy or work habits or whatever, but if you’re not going to be happy,” he’d met Dex’s eyes, “what’s the point?”

The next day Dex had said yes to the highest paying job offer he’d gotten from New York. He’d put a down payment on a place two blocks from Nursey. He’d told his ma over the phone and hadn’t felt anything but relief.

_Seven years_ , Dex thought blearily, _seven years it took me to realize what I need to be happy_.

Nursey stopped suddenly and Dex realized they had reached his apartment. Dex stared up the length of it, then looked back down at Nursey, who was looking at him expectantly.

“What?”

Nursey said, obviously repeating, “Do you want a coffee or something before you go?”

Dex had known him long enough to know when he was coming on to someone, and this offer was as chaste as they came. Still, Dex’s heart tangoed in his chest. “Yes,” he said, mouth dry. Nursey nodded and turned towards his building.

Nursey apartment was a familiar, warm place. The walls were lined with bookshelves—a task Dex had unfortunately taken on the summer they’d moved to the city—and each one held an eclectic mix of Nursey’s favorites, hand-me-downs, yard sale finds, birthday presents, hated novels he bought out of spite, and everything in between. Each one, Dex knew, held within it Nursey’s loopy, slanted cursive, his thoughts recorded along with the stories themselves. Dex had borrowed a few of them, over the years—had never paid much attention to the actual novels, if he was being honest.

Fuck, he felt like being honest.

“Nursey.”

Nursey dropped his keys in the dish by his door—Dex had gotten him that their first summer here, too—and turned halfway. “Hmm?”

“I’m an idiot.”

Nursey’s hand froze, open, above the dish. Dex watched it begin to shake slightly. “Well, that isn’t news,” he said, careful. “We’ve known that for years.”

“I’m not—good at this.” Nursey turned. Dex swallowed, keeping his gaze. “I won’t be good at this.”

Nursey said nothing. Dex guessed that was fair.

“I’ve loved only you for seven years and I couldn’t even do that right, so I don’t—”

“Dex.” Nursey curled his shaking hand into a fist. “What are you saying.”

Dex took a deep breath. He ignored Maine. He ignored his own screaming chest. He exhaled. “I want to try. I’m sorry it took me this long, but—”

Dex’s words were swallowed. Nursey cupped his face, fingertips finding the soft spaces at the join of his jaw. Their lips brushed, hesitant, halfway, and then all at once they were kissing.

It wasn’t apocalyptic. Dex was somewhat grateful that it wasn’t. Instead it was something like walking into a place you’d never been before to find it had all your favorite things inside, a place where they knew what temperature you kept the thermostat at, how you liked your eggs in the morning. Kissing Nursey was coming home to somewhere exciting and new and knowing without hesitation that you would be welcome there, indefinite. Unconditional.

Nursey pulled back only when all the breath Dex had to give was gone. “Say it again,” he said, lips brushing Dex’s as he spoke.

Dex shivered. “What? I’m sorry?”

“No, the other thing.”

_The other thing? What other_ —Oh.

“I love you,” Dex said. He could feel Nursey’s smile. He said it again. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Nursey said, so close it was dizzying.

Fuck. Dex kissed him. He really liked the way that sounded. Out loud.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to drop a kudos or a comment, and if you really liked the fic and have a Tumblr, reblogging [this post](https://likeshipsonthesea.tumblr.com/post/614495434917937152/no-one-has-to-know-ikindalikewriting-check) about the story would really help me out!
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


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